Suspected ‘Sovereign Citizen’ on Run After Shooting at Idaho Officer

A nationwide manhunt is under way for an antigovernment fugitive who shot at an Idaho State Police officer over the weekend before kidnapping a woman and taking her from Idaho to Montana.

Mitchell Lee Walck, who served prison time in Montana for assaulting a police officer, released the 62-year-old kidnap victim unharmed 580 miles away in Glendive, Mont., after taking her at gunpoint from her home in Rathdrum, Idaho, on Saturday.

Walck, 57, is believed to be driving the woman’s stolen 2005 silver Subaru Forester station wagon, with Idaho license plate K230050, perhaps heading toward his home state of Pennsylvania, authorities told Hatewatch.

The FBI has joined the hunt for the fugitive, believed armed with a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol and two rifles and ammunition he stole from the kidnap victim’s North Idaho home.

The suspect broke into the woman’s home on Saturday, attempting to hide after firing a 9 mm pistol at close range at an ISP trooper who stopped a stolen truck in nearby Spirit Lake, Idaho, Friday evening. The officer, who was wearing a vest, was not hit, said Capt. Greg McLean of the Post Falls, Idaho, Police Department.

A briefcase found in the stolen truck contained “various antigovernment writings” with references to federal sieges at Waco and Ruby Ridge and “a series of questions for the FBI,” McLean said.

While some of the suspect’s writings and scribbled rants have the hallmarks of the antigovernment “sovereign citizens” movement and he doesn’t have a driver’s license, nothing was found that specifically showed Walck has declared himself a sovereign citizen, McLean said. Sovereign citizens generally believe they are immune from many taxes and laws, including those requiring driver’s licenses and vehicle registration.